Deals

Highstar hires Morgan Stanley executive for new London office

Emmett McCann, an executive director in Morgan Stanley’s infrastructure advisory team in London, will be based in Highstar’s upcoming London office. His career move coincides with the departure of Rob Collins, formerly the head of infrastructure investment banking for the Americas at Morgan Stanley.

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Emmett McCann, an executive director on Morgan Stanley’s infrastructure advisory team in London, has left the firm to join Highstar Capital.

McCann, based in New York, will eventually relocate to London, where Highstar intends to open its third office, according to a person familiar with the matter. He officially joined the firm last week, the person added.

New York-based Highstar Capital, which is currently investing out of its third infrastructure fund that closed on $3.5 billion in October 2007, has been advised by McCann on a number of transactions since 2007.

McCann advised Highstar on its acquisition of US-based port operators AMPORTS and MTC Holdings, both of which were merged with its platform stevedore, Ports America.

McCann’s departure coincides with another high-profile departure from Morgan Stanley’s infrastructure advisory team. Last week, Rob Collins, Morgan Stanley’s Chicago-based head of infrastructure investment banking for the Americas, left the firm to lead boutique investment bank Greenhill’s advisory effort for the infrastructure sector in the Americas.

While at Morgan Stanley, Collins and McCann worked together on a number of high-profile advisory mandates, such as the 2007 lease of the Indiana lottery, which was eventually dropped.

Both previously worked at Goldman Sachs, where they advised the City of Chicago on its $1.8 billion long-term lease of the Skyway toll bridge to a Macquarie-Cintra consortium in 2004.